THE MATTHEW SHEPARD SLAYING
				Discuss the case Nov. 19 1998 Update Dec. 11, 1998 Update Russell Henderson's Guilty Plea and Sentencing June 25 Update Oct. 8 1999 Update (Background Report) Oct. 11 (Jury Selection) Oct. 14 Update Oct. 22 Update Oct. 25 Update (Opening Statements) Oct. 26 Update Oct. 27 Update Oct. 28 Update (Morning) Oct. 28 Update (Afternoon) Oct. 29 Update (Morning) Oct. 29 Update (Afternoon) Nov. 1 Update (Morning) Nov. 1 Update (Evening) Nov. 2 Update (Closing Arguments) Nov. 3 Update (Jury Deliberations) Nov. 3 (The Verdict) "Gay Panic" Ruling

LARAMIE, Wyo. (Court TV) — The girlfriend of Aaron McKinney's co-defendant told jurors in the Matthew Shepard murder case Thursday that McKinney asked his friends to help him cover up his involvement in the beating death.

Chasity Pasley, the girlfriend of co-defendant Russell Henderson, is serving a 15-to-24-month sentence for her involvement in the attempted cover-up in Shepard's death. Prosecutors say McKinney's girlfriend, Kristen Price, and Pasley tried to provide the defendants with alibis, threw Henderson's bloody clothes in a dumpster at Cheyenne and hid Henderson's bloody shoes in a storage shed. Pasley pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to Shepard's murder last December and Price faces trial in January.

During testimony Thursday at McKinney's trial, Pasley told jurors that Henderson and McKinney got together after Shepard's beating "so they could get their story straight." However, McKinney's defense attorneys objected to part of Pasley's testimony, calling it hearsay. Pasley also admitted trying to help Henderson and McKinney conceal their involvement in Shepard's death.

Henderson pleaded guilty to felony murder with robbery and kidnapping during jury selection in his trial in April and blamed McKinney for the slaying. He said he witnessed — but did not participate in — Shepard's murder and that it was McKinney's idea to rob and beat the victim. Currently serving two consecutive life sentences without parole, Henderson was at the courthouse Thursday and was on the prosecution's witness list. However, he was excused as a witness by the state, but remains on the defense's witness list.

McKinney's lawyers are trying to convince Wyoming jurors that he did not intend to kill Shepard when he beat him to death last October. According to the defense, McKinney went into a blind rage after Shepard, a gay student, allegedly made an unwanted pass at him. The defense argued that this rage — and McKinney's fatal beating of Shepard — was spurred partly by the defendant's own prior homosexual experience and aggravated by drug and alcohol abuse. The defense argued Monday that McKinney was sexually abused by a male neighborhood bully when he was 7 years old and had a "confusing" experience at age 15 with one of his cousins.

But on Wednesday, Judge Barton Voigt told defense attorney Dion Custis that he found no provisions in state law that allow him to present a gay panic defense. Judge Voigt said that unless McKinney's lawyers find a state law that would allow this strategy, he would bar the defense from presenting evidence about the gay panic theory.

Wyoming prosecutors say McKinney was the mastermind behind Shepard's brutal slaying. According to prosecutors, McKinney and Henderson met Shepard at a bar, allegedly pretended to be gay and lured Shepard into the pickup truck that McKinney was driving. There, Shepard was pistol-whipped, beaten, robbed, tied to a fence and left to die in freezing temperatures.

Shepard was found 18 hours later and taken to the hospital. He died five days after being admitted.

If convicted of first-degree murder, McKinney could face the death penalty.

— Bryan Robinson